Special Place
by Wyntir Rose
Summary: G1 Optimus waits patiently for a meeting that may never happen.


**Special Place**

_**Disclaimer:** Transformers belong to Hasbro and Takara, and are licensed to IDW and Dreamworks. My original characters are my own and any similarity between them and any existing characters from canon or fandom is purely coincidental. I claim no ownership by writing this work._

**Author's Note:** This little was ficlet was inspired by Optimus Prime: Anticipation, a picture by perechan. When I first saw it I thought that Optimus looked young and wistful, and like he was waiting for someone who might never come. It implanted a plot bunny, and this is the result. I hope that I did perechan's work justice.

As another note, I usually write in an AU that combines aspects of the various G1 comics, cartoons, and fanon. This piece, however, is completely based in the G1 cartoon canon.

Very special thanks goes out to perechan for allowing me to use her art as an inspiration.

* * *

The water comes up to my thighs, cool and soothing as it beats gently against me. This used to be our favourite place; our special, secret place. Whenever our work at the docks allowed for time off, we would come here. No one else knew about it, and even if they did, no one would have cared. Our kind is not exactly enamoured by the organic and that's just fine with me because it meant we had an entire world of privacy.

Ariel had been the one to find it. A friend of a friend who worked in the explorers' corps had told her of a water world that was teeming with non-sentient organic life. The world had nothing to offer and so the scientists never bothered to give it a name, just a number classification. Eppa Xiron 375. An uninteresting name for an uninteresting world. Obviously the scientists never saw what Ariel and I did.

The first time we came here we were just looking for privacy, something that is in short supply on Cybertron. Neither of us was expecting much, just a quiet place and maybe a patch of dry dirt to lie on. As soon as we both had a solar off, I arrange for the use of a shuttle, and we set off to see Eppa Xiron 375 for ourselves. What we found was an organic paradise. Most of the surface was covered with blue-green water and dotted with small brown islands. In the water there lived rainbow scaled creatures that swam just below the surface reflecting the light of the golden sun with their bodies, and in the blue-white sky equally beautiful avian creatures mirrored the water-dwellers in their flight. The only sound was the songs of the avians and the gentle lull of the water as it lapped against the shores. We fell in love with this world from the first moment we set foot on it and came back again and again.

But life has a way of conspiring against us when we least expect it. The civil war was escalating and I was becoming … distracted. We came back here less and less as I became more and more enamoured with the Decepticons and with Megatron. Ariel and I weren't drifting apart by any means but we were finding that we had less and less private time together. And then those flyers came into our lives and I finally saw Megatron for the monster he was. On that day Ariel and Orion Pax died. We live on as Elita One and Optimus Prime but we are very different people now. I know that I still love her, but the escalating war keeps us apart and I don't know if love is enough anymore.

We have each become leaders of our own troops, fighting to save Cybertron from the evils of Megatron's rule. We each now have duties that require us to be apart and the more time that passes the more distant we become. I still dream about her during my recharge cycle but I wasn't even able to speak with her the last time I called. I had to leave a message with her Second, who Ironhide assures me is the picture of discretion. But still, I received no firm response one way or another. I came here hoping that she would as well, but for all I know, this is a fool's errand. For all I know she has moved on just as I have not. But I have faith in her, and I have faith in us. I came here because I am willing to wait. She deserves that much and more.

So now I stand thigh deep in the waters of Eppa Xiron 375 as the yellow sun begins to set behind the horizon. I wait patiently, hoping that Elita One will have received my message and will remember this place. I'm praying that she will come here, and that, if only for a short time, we can be Orion Pax and Ariel again.


End file.
